‘Designed to disorient’: LA art museum unveils enormous concrete gallery, 20 years in the making

Stretched across a boulevard and shaped like an amoeba', the divisive Geffen Galleries open next week

Two decades ago, the new director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) began a project to revitalize the space for the 21st century. On Wednesday, the institution unveiled the results of that $724m effort: the David Geffen Galleries, a hulking, curving concrete building that spans Wilshire Boulevard.

In a city of striking modern architecture, from the Getty Museum to the Disney Concert Hall, the opening is a landmark event. The project, whose unconventional shape has been likened to an amoeba, has inspired praise and polarization.